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Lithuania tourist favorites?

My husband will be spending four days in Lithuania in a few weeks for the first time, renting a car, hoping to visit some ancestral villages. I expect he'll do some birding and try to get to a nature preserve, and spend some time poking around Vilnius where he'll fly in and out. The beaches look good to me right about now.

Besides Vilnius, the biggest tourist attraction in Lithuania seems to be the Hill of Crosses in the town of Šiauliai, maybe a 90 minute drive from Vilnius. This hill became known during Soviet times as a place where locals put up crosses in a field out in the middle of nowhere, in defiance of Soviet laws against recognition of religion. The crosses would be removed and then the next day, new crosses would appear. Now there are literally thousands of crosses, and it's become a big tourist attraction.

I visited Šiauliai by bus a couple of weeks ago - sure would be easier with a car. I didn't visit any parks or natural areas besides the lakes at the town of Trakai. I didn't have time to get to the coast.